


I May Be Trying (but I never tried)

by theLiterator



Series: Forgiveness is Divine [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Christmas, Dick Grayson is Dead, Family, Gen, Gift Giving, Knitting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 00:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3916165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLiterator/pseuds/theLiterator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What is this?" Damian demanded, staring at the woolen lumps in the parcel he'd snatched from Tim. Tim glared up at him from where he'd fallen, sliding down half a flight of stairs before he'd managed to finally check his momentum. Clumsy.</p>
<p>"They're gloves," Drake replied. "They're a gift. Give them back."</p>
<p>"They're hideous," Damian said, even as his fingers caught at the perfect, even stitching, even as he clenched his hands tightly around the reminder of Grayson, sentimental and paltry in the shade of his grief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I May Be Trying (but I never tried)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [To Try, To Err, To Try Again](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3883549) by [theLiterator](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLiterator/pseuds/theLiterator). 



> Damian's POV. Based on the Fic_Promptly prompt: "DCU, Tim +/ Any, beware Geeks bearing painstakingly hand-crafted gifts."

"What is this?" Damian demanded, staring at the woolen lumps in the parcel he'd snatched from Tim. Tim glared up at him from where he'd fallen, sliding down half a flight of stairs before he'd managed to finally check his momentum. Clumsy.

"They're gloves," Drake replied. "They're a gift. Give them back."

"They're hideous," Damian said, even as his fingers caught at the perfect, even stitching, even as he clenched his hands tightly around the reminder of Grayson, sentimental and paltry in the shade of his grief.

He forced himself to let them go, to drop them on the heap that was Drake in the middle of the stairs, and walk away.

The solid wood of his bedroom door shut out the world with a dull, resounding thud, and he sank down, pressing his back against it as if that would keep Drake out, should Drake choose to follow him.

(Drake didn't choose to follow him.)

It took very little effort to discover that the gloves were intended for Gordon, and less to determine that she had requested them for herself. He sifted through emails for several hours and discovered that Drake often took such requests, that he often presented hand-knitted goods for gift-giving occasions.

It was absolutely pointless for Damian to mind such a thing, when he could hardly bear Drake's continued presence on the same planet, but.

But.

When Pennyworth came to call him to breakfast, he demurred. "I'll eat in my quarters, thank you," he said when Pennyworth pressed him.

He found out through judicious hacking of the internal surveillance systems that Titus and Alfred were both more privy to Drake's hand-crafting activities than Damian had been, and finally, Damian could stand idleness no more and stormed out of his room, though he avoided the wing of the Manor Drake had claimed for his own.

***

"Hey there, baby-bat," Todd called from one rooftop over. 

"Todd," Damian said, trying to dissuade with tone alone the way his Father always managed, and failing, as Todd leapt across to join him, lighting a cigarette.

"What's eating you?" Todd asked, offering the packet of cigarettes to Damian. Damian made to wave him off, as always, but then something on Todd's wrists caught his attention, and instead he seized Todd's forearm and brought it close.

He scoffed, but it might, possibly, have sounded more like a sigh.

"You like?" Todd asked. "Timmy did them up special. There's little darts that go with them, great for undercover-- whoa. What's wrong?"

"He hates you," Damian said, feeling flat and blank.

"Yeah, but we're still family, I guess? I don't know, the kid's a little crazy."

"Right," Damian said.

They stood in silence for a few long minutes, and Todd finished his cigarette, lighting another.

"You okay? I mean, you haven't tried to kill me once, and--"

"If I had ever tried to kill you," Damian informed him coolly, "You would be dead." He turned and fired a grappling hook to a much higher building and abandoned Todd and his idiotic conversation.

***

Damian did his utmost to avoid thinking about the fact that Drake apparently treasured _Todd_ enough to knit for _him_ , but had never even made an attempt to craft something for Damian.

He even managed to succeed, mostly by dint of never being within 100 feet of Drake, until Thanksgiving, which had Pennyworth waking him in his room, his disapproving eye roving across every surface while he bustled Damian through his morning ablutions.

Damian tried, surreptitiously, to see what was causing Pennyworth's dismay, but everything appeared tidy to him, the few items he had left out straight and aligned on his desk, everything else put in drawers and hung neatly in his closet. He could see where he hadn't wound the cord completely around his game controller, but the controller was tucked up with the game system, so it shouldn't have been a problem.

Well, there was no accounting for Pennyworth anyway. He rarely visited Damian's quarters and when he did it was _always_ with this oppressive air of disapproval, it was not worth the effort to think about.

Besides, Father always made a point of telling him that his rooms were his to decorate as he pleased, often with significant glances at Pennyworth when he did, so Damian did his best to ignore him now.

Damian got dressed with Pennyworth's assistance, which he suffered mutely, and spent the entirety of the ride to Smallville sitting next to Drake in stony silence.

He had learned to tolerate Thanksgiving, and Ma Kent had remembered his refusal to eat meat, so he didn't have to remind her and draw attention to himself, though he was forced to endure Drake's company for the entire meal, which put him off his appetite so he barely ate any of the several dishes she had ensured he could eat.

After dinner, Ma Kent lingered when Drake did, casting wary glances between the two of them and holding Kon back from leaving as well, Damian assumed it was just in case he lost it and tried to rip Drake's head from his shoulders. He stared at the table. The polite thing to do would be to offer to help clear it.

He wasn't feeling very polite.

Drake pulled out a package he'd been gripping tightly since that morning. "Here," he snapped. "Jesus, just stop ignoring me."

Damian stared at it. He'd never truly expected it to be for him. It would make more sense for the gift to be for Kon, or Ma Kent, and in fact he glanced at the two of them for confirmation before he pulled out a knife to open it.

Inside was... was... "What is this."

"It's a hat," Drake spat. "It's a _gift_."

It was... something. Damian rather thought it had been designed for a child, and it was clumsily knitted, the stitches were pulling in some places and uneven in others, and he stared at it as something like pain churned in his gut.

"It's _hideous_ ," Damian hissed as he clutched it to his chest and fled.

***

Cassandra made him sit with her the next day, warm against his side as she read carefully aloud from a chapter book that was just slightly beyond her ability.

Neither of them bothered to pretend that her choice wasn't deliberate, a ruse to force him to stay close and help her with the words she didn't yet know. It was easier that way.

She finished her chapter, shut her book, and sighed. "Tim hurt you," she said.

"He didn't," Damian protested.

Cassandra shrugged, a liquid movement that managed to elegantly convey her complete lack of interest in his dissemblage along with her interest in his thoughts on the topic.

"He made me this," Damian said. "I think. It's not-- it isn't like what he made for Todd, or for Gordon, though, so I don't-- I don't understand," he whispered the last, but Cassandra didn't need to hear his admission to sense his uncertainty, which made it all the easier to voice aloud.

Cassandra took the hat from him, frowning at it, then putting it over his head and wrapping the scarf ends around his neck.

She shook her head. "Wrong."

Damian felt, somehow, immensely relieved by this assessment.

***

"Hey, angry bird," Todd said, obnoxiously flicking ashes all over Damian's floor. 

Damian growled at him and drew a knife, but Todd ignored that, simply offering Damian his cigarette. Damian scoffed and took it, sucking down a long drag, raising an eyebrow at Todd’s flabbergasted expression.

“You’re a _kid_ ,” Todd said. “Give that back, you can’t smoke.”

Damian laughed. “Why are you here, Todd.”

“I’m here for the damned hat thing. Also, I have to ask--” here Todd drew out a piece of crumpled receipt paper and read “If you could have anything in the world and no one would judge your worth -- what the fuck? Anyway, what do you actually want for Christmas?”

Damian stared at him.

Todd shrugged.

“Richard Grayson,” Damian replied, smirking, ignoring the uncomfortable spark of truth at the core of that, waiting for the inevitable grimace from Todd at being yet again compared to his predecessor. He didn’t get it.

Instead, Todd looked merely thoughtful, dropped his packet of cigarettes on Damian’s bed, and left through the window.

When Damian finally ventured to pick up the packet, he saw there was a lighter in with them, and he shrugged, putting them away in a drawer.

They could come in handy.

***

After that midnight visit, his father’s collection of strays all but disappeared, and Damian was left to his own devices.

Largely, that was true regardless, but even Cassandra and Brown were nowhere to be found, and he had his father’s undivided attention.

He had always known that the undivided attention of _any_ of his family, save Grayson, was painful, but nothing quite exemplified it so thoroughly as his father’s.

They staged several photos for the paparazzi. First, of the two of them building snow constructions out in the manor grounds, one of them at the mall just outside of town where Damian was forced to endure a queue made up entirely of children and parents in order to sit on a stranger in a costume’s lap.

“This is pointless,” Damian announced generally when his father tried to drag him into one of the mall shops to look around for gifts to give. “None of them will even remember what I got them in a few weeks, and…” he frowned, thinking of the hat-thing that Todd had stolen. “I doubt any of them will get me anything.”

His father rested a hand awkwardly on his shoulder, and Damian submitted to the physical contact with barely a twitch, which, he thought, meant he was getting better at it. “I’m sure they will,” he said. “At least help me choose something for Alfred.”

“Fine,” Damian bit out, and he walked boldly into the nearest store, which sold leather goods, and demanded to speak to a salesclerk.

***

"Wayne Heir causes tears at Christmas?" Pennyworth read off the morning paper as he set it before his father. "I simply cannot imagine how that might be so, when normally he's so charming."

"Their offerings were inadequate and overpriced," Damian said primly.

"I told you," Father replied. "You can't haggle at a shopping mall."

Damian crossed his arms over his chest and scowled at his plate. Pennyworth had been toying with vegan pancake recipes that week, and this batch was by far the most presentable.

"And you certainly cannot threaten them with torture when they refuse to haggle," Father continued.

Pennyworth sighed.

Damian squirmed. "I wouldn't have actually tortured her," he said mulishly.

His father sighed heavily and took a bite of his own pancakes, frowned, then set down his fork.

"Alfred--"

“Master Bruce,” Pennyworth replied quellingly.

Damian knew when to strategically withdraw, and he did. The last time he’d stayed for this conversation it had been full of couched meanings, and Pennyworth and his father had gotten into an argument about natural pacifism as opposed to entrained violence, and he did not wish to endure that half-understood argument again, so he slid back from the table and crept out the side door.

He needed to check that his snow structure was still adequately shored in case of unexpected assault anyway.

***

Dawn hit on Christmas day with a cold clarity that made Damian want to run outside and check his snow structure, but Father had mentioned yesterday that he was spending a lot of time out in the snow, so he instead went down to the kitchens. 

Pennyworth, Damian reflected, must never sleep, because he was awake already, and cookin.

“Something tells me my father would disapprove of you being up so early,” Damian said conversationally, even as he carefully perched on the counter nearest the food preparations.

“Why, Master Damian,” Pennyworth said as he poured Damian a mug from the saucepan on the stove. “I had no idea you cared.”

His lips were twitching in a secret little grin, so Damian just scoffed and kicked his feet. He took the mug when it was offered, and stared at it. He had yet to acquire a taste for cocoa, but it smelled like Pennyworth had put even more cinnamon in to try to appease Damian’s palate.

“I found you a gift,” he said, hopping off the counter to dart into the den where the tree was set up and seize it. It would probably be best to have Pennyworth open it where father couldn’t see and disapprove.

When he presented it to Pennyworth though, he was filled, however, with an uncertainty. “Obviously it was no effort,” he snapped before Pennyworth even had the package in his hands.

“Of course not,” Pennyworth murmured.

Damian pretend to ignore him entirely and climbed back up on the counter to take a sip of his cocoa-- except it wasn’t cocoa.

“Salep?” he asked, surprised, taking a longer sip.

“Mmm,” Pennyworth said, then, “Revolvers?”

Damian shrugged. "Webleys," he said. "Matched. They were in abysmal condition, but I have some experience in maintaining antique weapons, luckily, or they might have rotted in that consignment shop."

"Mmm, yes," Pennyworth said, checking them over. "And you kept this from Master Bruce?"

Damian sniffed. "Well, I am not entirely dependent on _his_ funds."

"I expect, Master Damian, that you are not dependent upon us at all," Pennyworth said with a little twist to his mouth.

Damian scoffed.

Pennyworth smiled then, warm and beaming, and said. "Regardless, these are beautiful. Thank you very much. I don't suppose I could trouble you for a hug?"

"Well," Damian said, already steeling his nerves and locking his joints to keep instinct from rearing up, grateful for the warning. "It is customary, I am told."

"Indeed it is, Dami," Pennyworth said, gingerly folding him close. He smelled of cinnamon and butter, and Damian didn't even protest the nickname, just leaned in.

After a few moments, Pennyworth released him, and Damian watched him cooking, sipping his sales, for almost half an hour.

"Tim will be up soon," Pennyworth said gently.

"Oh. Thank you, Pennyworth," Damian said, leaping from the counter. He would see how long he could stay in his room this morning before his presence was required.

***

His father came up several hours later with a baffled expression and a mug in his hands. “Damian,” he said, and then he bit his lip and thrust the mug at him.

A careful sniff and a tentative sip told Damian that it was salep, still, which meant whatever came next was a request from Pennyworth, so he squared his shoulders and prepared himself for the orders.

“The whole family is downstairs,” his father said. “I… ah… understand that you don’t enjoy such events, but I would-- _we_ would still appreciate your presence. With us.” His father gritted his teeth then, and Damian nodded.

“Of course, father,” Damian said, taking a long drink of his beverage to shore himself up.

“I tried it,” Father said. “It’s not bad.”

“My nurses would sometimes spoil me with it,” Damian confided, feeling greatly daring, almost _shaky_ to say it.

“Is Alfred spoiling you?” Father asked, and Damian straightened his spine.

“Of course not,” Damian retorted. Something unfathomable flicked across his father’s features then, and Damian bit the inside of his cheek, an invisible tell, and accompanied him the rest of the way in silence.

***

Alfred was well-socialized by now, and he curled up primly on Damian’s lap, tucked into a tiny curl of cat, eyes mere slits of disdain. Damian focused on scratching his cheeks and ears, the way he liked it, and Titus huffed from his place at Damian’s feet.

Eventually, they were all of them assembled, and Damian sat patiently, watching as everyone exchanged gifts, solemnly accepting the pen-and-journal set from his father and laying it aside to be examined later, and then, then there were two gifts left, a tiny parcel that Cassandra slipped forward to seize and clutch to her chest, and a much larger package that had quite clearly been wrapped by Pennyworth.

Damian glanced surreptitiously around, wondering what code he’d missed, what signal they were waiting for, when Todd flipped a small USB drive in his direction. Damian caught it without thinking, and turned it over in his fingers.

"They’re your baby pictures," Todd said with a dark smile that said he was lying. "Figured you'd like them." Damian arched a brow at him, then tucked the drive into a secret pocket. He’d worry about it later-- it was a good thing he’d gotten an untraceable computer as well as a few other things at the consignment store with Pennyworth’s revolvers; he’d be able to see what Todd had thought a suitable gift in privacy; doubtless whatever it was would serve dual purpose and upset his father.

"Okay, Tim's turn.” Todd said, smirking. “His is also from me, you're welcome."

Drake took the last package from under the tree, and Damian stared at it; wondering why he’d had Pennyworth wrap the thing, before he slipped a knife out to open it. The others had all ripped the paper, but he had no idea where the seams might be, and the knife had been efficient enough last time, after all.

When he opened it, he pulled out a-- a _thing_. It was enormous, for something handcrafted in what had to have been a short amount of time, and he was not an expert, but his hands were sensitive enough to make out that several different people had had a hand in it’s crafting; the stitches looser in this panel, tighter in that, and the black was shot through with the colors of Robin-- the colors he wore only on the sufferance of the others.

He was unsure whether this was meant as a threat or as a gift for several long, terrifying moments, and then his fingers caught a pocket, cleverly concealed inside the stitching of the blanket, and then another, so he realized the thing was riddled with the little secret places, and he froze, forcing himself to remain calm, passive.

"What _is_ this?" he asked.

"It's an afghan. We all worked on it, except Jason, he was busy with that," Drake said, indicating the USB drive. "And Bruce, because it's not... it's. He was busy. Being Bruce."

Damian hooked his fingers in two of the pockets, testing their capacity, and bit back the smile that would show Drake he had won-- but won what?

"It's mine?" Damian asked coolly.

"Yes," Drake said, looking just as uncertain in that moment as Damian felt. "Cass's turn," he added.

Cassandra nodded and passed him that last, tiny parcel, and Damian opened the box carefully. Damian shook his head at the socks within and frowned, trying to determine-- Cassandra would not manipulate him, nor could she be manipulated, which meant. He dropped them on top of the afghan and stood rather than trap himself with them, fleeing with as much dignity as he could gather about himself in the face of… of _that_.

***

_Well_ , Damian thought. _I did ask_.

He toggled the playback on Todd’s gift to loop, and let his fingers twitch in the little pockets of the blanket Drake had created for him.

After the third loop, he knew he had to act.

After the sixth, he admitted that he ought to bring Drake in on this particular mission, so he gathered up the used, invisible netbook he’d picked up for cheap at the consignment shop and the new blanket and made his way across to Drake’s room.

"What's that?" Drake asked, which struck Damian as odd. He had never yet entered Drake’s quarters, and he found them distractingly cluttered. There was art on the walls, and it looked like it had been affixed with _tape_ , and the sheets on the bed were a patterned flannel instead of white, and the duvet cover appeared to be Superman themed.

"Jason's present,” Damian said, distracting himself from Drake’s inexplicable room with an explanation, and when Drake refused to answer, Damian sighed and pressed play.

Drake sucked in a sharp breath when he recognized the figure in the footage.

"Son of a bitch.”

"Yes," Damian said. "Exactly," and hugging was the socially expected outcome for a Christmas gift exchange, so he rolled over to hug Drake, bringing the blanket with him so that they were a tangle of limbs. Drake was all sharp edges and elbows, and Damian envied him that, for a moment. Envied him his size and strength and skill and place in his father’s affections.

He maneuvered to shut the netbook and then… then he intended to ask Drake a favor. They were brothers though, in name if not blood, so he sought to remind Drake of that, so he offered Drake a brotherly embrace. 

"Merry Christmas," Damian said lowly, and then Drake twisted them so he could grip Damian, and Damian wondered if that meant it had worked, and Drake was in fact reminded of their adopted bonds.

"Merry Christmas," Drake replied. "How do you feel about spending New Year's in London?"

Damian relaxed, suddenly exhausted, and pressed his face into the join of Drake’s neck and shoulder, where his relief would not be seen.

London had all sorts of diversions for the young and wealthy during New Year’s, and…

And it apparently also had Jason Todd’s Christmas gift for Damian.

Damian smiled into Drake’s neck, and Drake returned the brotherly embrace from before casually, his lips dry against Damian’s temple. "That's what I thought,” Drake said, squeezing Damian tightly for a moment, two, and then relaxing. “That’s exactly what I thought.”


End file.
